In a move they're describing as "extraordinary" and "unprecedented," Ontario Provincial Police will send text messages to about 7,500 people on Thursday to ask for information about an unsolved homicide.

Investigators are calling it a "digital canvass" — the high-tech equivalent of knocking on thousands of doors for information.

The police are utilizing "dumps" from cell towers in the area to obtain these phone numbers. And that's all they've obtained, apparently. Using the list of connected phones in the area at the time of the murder, the police are sending text messages asking recipients to fill out a website questionnaire to help police find the killer.

As much as this might seem like an intrusion, it's probably preferable to the alternative: sending out dozens of officers to question potentially thousands of witnesses. Obviously, it works out well for the police. But it also works out for citizens. Nothing obliges anyone to respond to the unsolicited texts and answering a few questions on a website is far less annoying than being questioned at home by officers peeking through open doors to see if they can spot anything resembling indicia of criminal activity. Why make the entire day a waste? Why not make a few ancillary arrests while investigating an unrelated crime?

Unfortunately, it appears ignoring the message (or sending back "UNSUBSCRIBE") isn't going to keep the cops from using your phone for their communications.

Investigators will also consider calling the numbers of people who don't respond voluntarily, but they would be required to obtain another court order to do so.

The other troubling aspect is that the police obviously have no interest in destroying the phone data they've collected. It appears this will be held onto until the investigation is closed, even though the majority of the harvested numbers -- if not all of them -- will have zero relevance to the investigation other than their proximity to the crime scene.

The police have stressed that responses are completely voluntary, but the plans for follow-up calls suggest the opposite. On the plus side, if someone doesn't want to speak to a cop, getting removed from the list is as simple as filling out a few questions on a website. No details were provided as to how much personal information respondents will have to turn over, though, so this exercise in government efficiency could become just another data-harvesting method. If not subjected to strict controls, any names collected could be run through criminal record databases in hopes of finding active warrants or unpaid fines. If so, it will be tempting to handle more investigations through tower dumps, text messages, and website questionnaires -- what with all the extra arrests and revenue generation that may result from bulk texting.

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]]>new-phone-who-dishttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20161030/07380335914Tue, 2 Jun 2015 15:47:39 PDTRoca Labs' Lawyer Accused Of Intimidation After Threatening Expert Witness With *Criminal* Charges Over Billing RatesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150530/12560931160/roca-labs-lawyer-accused-intimidation-after-threatening-expert-witness-with-criminal-charges-over-billing-rates.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150530/12560931160/roca-labs-lawyer-accused-intimidation-after-threatening-expert-witness-with-criminal-charges-over-billing-rates.shtml
The United State's leading purveyor of packed-in-garagesstomach cement weight loss product can't be expected to let the merits of its offerings speak for themselves. I mean, it theoretically could allow this to happen, but it has already taken steps to ensure any positive reviews of its "gastric bypass alternatives" can only be viewed with skepticism.

Roca Labs will give purchasers a cut rate if they agree to proselytize on the company's behalf. Unhappy customers who tie themselves into this agreement are forced to display a public rictus or face additional withdrawals from their credit cards/bank accounts, as well as lawsuits for defamation and breach of contract. Those who pay the higher price initially are somewhat better off, although Roca Labs still seems intent on shutting down any negative portrayal of its products.

For the third time, Plaintiff and its attorney have engaged in unlawful witness intimidation. The prior times, this Court just told them not to do it again. They did not respect that warning. This time, Roca’s attorney is attempting to intimidate an expert witness from testifying by threatening criminal sanctions, and that threat has placed this witness in fear, requiring a rebuke from this Court sufficient to assuage his fears. A simple “don’t do it again” did not work last time. (Doc. # 17.) Defendants request a harsher rebuke from this Court, lest this continue.

This lawsuit, brought in Florida's middle district, features Roca suing PissedConsumer for negative reviews. Roca is suing everyone involved, from the reviewers themselves to the company owning the company owning the PissedConsumer brand. In its voluminous discovery demands, Roca is seeking pretty much every detail about every involved entity, including innocuous business dealings and, weirdly, the account holder info behind some negative tweets.

Several months and 100+ documents later, there's been some fighting over depositions and witnesses. That's where this gets uglier. Marc Randazza's filing notes that this isn't even the first time in this particular case that Roca's attempted to intimidate witnesses into withdrawing.

This action began with a request from Roca for this Court to impose an unconstitutional prior restraint on Defendants, in the form of their Motion for Entry of a Temporary Injunction. In Defendants’ Opposition to this Motion, filed September 18, 2014, Defendants contacted Roca’s former customers and attached declarations from them detailing their experience with Roca’s products. Very shortly after Defendants filed their Opposition, Plaintiff contacted these witnesses with threats of litigation for breach of an unenforceable contract. This timing was anything but coincidental, and so Defendants then brought a motion for a temporary restraining order against Plaintiff to cease this witness intimidation. While the Court denied Defendants’ motion on September 23, 2014, it “remind[ed] the parties that it will not hesitate to impose sanctions on any party that engages in witness tampering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512.”

This stern talking to didn't work. Roca sued the witness, as well as Randazza himself. Now, it's attempting to do the same thing to another potential witness, only going further by claiming (baselessly) that the witness could be subject to criminal charges.

Fast forward to May 2015. The parties have been in the process of attempting to schedule depositions prior to the discovery cutoff, including the deposition of Defendants’ expert witness Thomas Parisi, MD. Defendants’ counsel retained Dr. Parisi as an expert witness, and the two worked together to determine a fair expert billing rate for all parties to this action. (See Declaration of Marc J. Randazza [“Randazza Decl.”], attached as Exhibit 3, ¶¶ 2-7.)

In defense of its actions, Roca Lab's lawyer, Paul Berger, claims Randazza somehow "fixed" the prices to make it, I don't know, prohibitively expensive? (Randazza has to pay the same amount for Parisi's testimony.) Berger's email is included in the exhibits, and it's filled with allegations that Parisi could do the work cheaper, and that Randazza drove the price up. Cited in support are the fact that Parisi closes his office at noon every Friday (Parisi's higher in-person rate cites having to close his office as justification for the increase), as well as the fact that the average Las Vegas vein surgeon makes $375,000 a year -- both of which seem mostly irrelevant to the issue at hand -- that issue being that expert witnesses are free to charge whatever they'd like for court appearances.

Any expert or skilled witness who shall have testified in any cause shall be allowed a witness fee including the cost of any exhibits used by such witness in an amount agreed to by the parties, and the same shall be taxed as costs. In instances where services are provided for the state, including for state-paid private court-appointed counsel, payment from state funds shall be in accordance with standards adopted by the Legislature.

As with the majority of expert witnesses, I charge a different billable rate for research and preparation of written reports than I do for in-person testimony.

Part of the reason I charge a higher rate for in-person testimony is that when I am doing research and drafting reports, I can do that in the comfort of my home, during down-time, when I would otherwise not be working or spending time with my family. Therefore, for reports, I only charge $300 per hour.

For in-person testimony, I charge a minimum of $3,000 for a half day. This is because I must take my practice offline for that much time, if I am going to report to a court or a court reporter’s office. In addition, it requires me to shut down my clinic for a large portion of a given day, as I am the only doctor working at my clinic. Further, I find in person testimony to be unpleasant and undesirable, and while I am willing to do it for the right pay, I can think of no other activity that would be as unpleasant as being deposed.

Parisi's statement also points out that it's not out of the realm of the imagination that Roca Labs would follow through with its threat to bring criminal charges against him (or, at least, attempt to, despite having no basis for doing so) considering it has already sued an opposing counsel for statements made in court.

Furthermore, Parisi offers his sworn statement that Berger's assertions in his email to Marc Randazza are wholly untrue:

It is my sworn testimony that Mr. Berger is lying in this email to Mr. Randazza, and that his statements regarding the contents of our phone conversation are not true. Mr. Berger’s statements are completely false, and seem calculated to try and create a rift between the defendants and myself.

Now, whether Roca's threats were prompted by a desire to keep Parisi from testifying or simply because its sludge slush fund for testimony reimbursement is running a little low because of its many litigations remains to be seen. But what it looks like is the standard Roca legal strategy: threaten, sue, threaten, sue, ad nauseum -- which apparently even extends to witnesses otherwise uninvolved (i.e., without "bypass alternative" currently or recently residing in their stomachs) with the lawsuits.

The allegations on either side are ugly. Roca is accused of baselessly threatening a witness with criminal charges. Randazza is accused of inflating the witness' testimony price (which would be odd, considering that's the price he also has to pay). The question before the court is: did Roca's lawyer's action rise to the level of sanctionable intimidation? A prior verbal warning by the court doesn't seem to have had any effect on Berger and Roca. If this sort of behavior continues, Roca may soon find itself being referred to as the "Prenda" of questionable weight loss products.

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]]>prices-so-high-they-must-be-CRIMINAL!https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20150530/12560931160Mon, 13 May 2013 11:52:00 PDTPolice Follow Up Beating A 'Possibly Intoxicated' Man To Death By Seizing Witnesses' Cell PhonesTim Cushinghttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130512/20494523050/bakersfield-ca-law-enforcement-follow-up-beating-possibly-intoxicated-man-to-death-seizing-witnesses-cell-phones.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130512/20494523050/bakersfield-ca-law-enforcement-follow-up-beating-possibly-intoxicated-man-to-death-seizing-witnesses-cell-phones.shtml
How many law enforcement officers does it take to subdue one intoxicated man? In Bakersfield, CA, it takes nine: seven sheriff's deputies, two CHP officers and a police dog. It also appears that being publicly intoxicated and resisting arrest in Bakersfield is punishable by immediate death in the same county.

At this point, consider everything regarding the beating to be "alleged." After all, we don't have any conclusive evidence of what happened, despite two people filming it (and a handful of eyewitnesses) because law enforcement made sure every recording of the event (except one -- more on that in a bit) was seized as "evidence."

Also, keep in mind that David Silva, the thirty-three year old father of four who was allegedly beaten to death by nine law enforcement officers, was only allegedly intoxicated and violent. Evidence of his crime(s) disappeared along with the footage of multiple cops swinging batons. (I suppose this will be verified when the autopsy results are made public, presumably featuring a full toxicology report.)

Here's an eyewitness account of the beating:

At about midnight, Ruben Ceballos, 19,was awakened by screams and loud banging noises outside his home. He said he ran to the left side of his house to find out who was causing the ruckus.

"When I got outside I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head," Ceballos said.

Silva was on the ground screaming for help, but officers continued to beat him, Ceballos said.

After several minutes, Ceballos said, Silva stopped screaming and was no longer responsive.

The phones used to record the incident were seized by law enforcement as "evidence." As it's highly doubtful the sheriff's department is looking into charging a dead man with a crime, the only "investigation" possible would be a look into the actions of the officers at the scene. This also means the only criminal activity captured on film would be the officers'. Turning over the only copy of evidence to the perpetrators is generally considered to be a terrible idea. But when you've just witnessed nine law enforcement officers beat a man into unconsciousness (and eventual death), your normal citizen is probably going to think twice before telling another officer, "No."

But the witnesses held out as long as they could. The incident happened around midnight. The two witnesses who had recorded the event (a male whose name hasn't been released and Maria Melendez) were called back to their apartment by the sheriff's department. This was at 3 AM. At that point, the officers demanded they turn over their cell phones. They refused to do so without being served a warrant. The officers then detained them in the apartment, telling them they couldn't leave without turning over their phones.

Three hours later, the male turned over his phone, stating he needed to be to work in a couple of hours. The officers detained Melendez for nearly nine hours. The search warrant finally arrived around noon and Melendez relinquished her phone. The two witnesses were told they could pick up their phones the next day. When the unnamed male went to recover his, he found the timeframe had now changed to "months, even years" before he could get his phone back.

Two bits of evidence have made their way into the public, unimpeded by sheriff's deputies with endless amounts of time to waste and rights to violate. The first is a 911 call reporting the beating made by Salinas Quair, Melendez's daughter. This call alerted law enforcement to the fact that the (alleged) beating had been recorded, triggering the intimidating roundup (and detainment) of these witnesses.

There's a man laying on the floor and your police officers beat the [explicit] out of him and killed him," said the woman. "I have it all on video camera."

The woman continued:

"I am sitting here on the corner of Flower and Palm right now and you have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight Sheriffs. The guy was laying on the floor and eight Sheriff's ran up and started beating him up with sticks. The man is dead laying right here, right now."

The grainy black and white video appears to show the alleged victim, David Silva, 33, lying on the ground. Another person is then seen walking up to Silva and attempting to pick him up. Both men appear to scuffle, and after a few minutes, Silva is seen being struck with an object.

Other cars are seen arriving at the scene with lights flashing on top of them. Several other men are then seen in the video, also striking Silva more than a dozen times with objects. Silva is then seen being taken into custody.

The office did identify the officers involved in the arrest as Sgt. Douglas Sword and deputies Ryan Greer, Tanner Miller, Jeffrey Kelly, Luis Almanza, Brian Brock and David Stephens.

That's seven from the sheriff's department. The names of the two CHP officers have not been released. That's nine altogether, plus a police dog.

One has to wonder, though, how the officers were "forced" to use their batons. Perhaps some force was needed to subdue Silva, but with nine officers responding (and swinging), you'd think the tide would have turned in law enforcement's favor long before Silva lost consciousness. And how much "resistance" did Silva actually offer, considering the first officer on the scene was responding to a call from Kern Medical Center security who reported Silva as "passed out?"

End result: a man loses his life for being intoxicated. Nine officers beat Silva senseless take Silva "into custody," which in this case is synonymous with "attempt CPR and call an ambulance." Ironically, Silva was only a block away from Kern Medical Center, not that it did him any good.

Not content to limit its wrongdoing to a beating, deputies then barge into a home without a warrant and detain two citizens against their will, one of them for nearly nine hours, until the warrant they should have needed just to get in the door at 3 AM finally shows up at noon.

Now, all of the inarguable evidence is in the hands of the same people who would prefer it just went away. It will be tough for them to get away with simply deleting the recordings, but stranger things have happened to evidence that implicates law enforcement officers but has ended up in the possession of law enforcement. The recording can be termed "unrecoverable" or have inexplicably large gaps in the footage. Or the phone may be damaged during "processing." Sometimes, the evidence just vanishes conveniently and a lengthy internal investigation will unwind at a glacial pace until everyone loses interest.

The people who witnessed this beating have nowhere to go. They can't trust the police and they've seen those who recorded the event quarantined in their home until they complied with the officers' requests to turn over their phones. If not for the constitutional violations committed by "law enforcement," the footage would already be publicly displayed. The longer the Sheriff's office delays in releasing this footage, the worse it appears. If this went down as described, there's no way law enforcement can hope to salvage some respect by attempting to downplay or justify the actions of these officers.

Even if Silva was putting up the fight of his life, he was intoxicated and was outnumbered 9-to-1. Any reasonable person would expect a suspect to be subdued before it got to the point where it became life-threatening. But any hopes of a reasonable outcome were discarded the moment that first two-handed swing connected.

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]]>keeping the peace at a ratio of nine to onehttps://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20130512/20494523050Fri, 8 Jan 2010 12:52:53 PSTChicago Prosecutor's Office Leaks Old, Unsubstantiated, Discredited Internal Memo To Smear Innocence Project FounderMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100107/0422577653.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100107/0422577653.shtmlbegan a campaign against the Innocence Project subpoenaing a ton of information that has no bearing on the case whatsoever, but seem designed to intimidate the journalism students. On top of this, the prosecutors have leaked claims that the students paid witnesses, which appears to be a misreading of a situation where cab fare was paid for by the students, and there was a bit of money left over.

But at every turn it looks like the prosecutor's office is out to smear, rather than to investigate. The latest, coming via Romenesko, is that the prosecutor's office released a decades old internal memo that smears the founder of the Innocence Project with claims that are either totally unsubstantiated or entirely discredited. The memo was given to at least two news organizations and has absolutely nothing to do with the case at hand. A spokesperson for the prosectors' office claimed that the document was distributed, "in the interest of trying to get the whole picture out there," which is really quite stunning. Again, the document has nothing to do with the case at hand and is either unsubstantiated or totally discredited. It's hard to see that as anything other than the Cook County State's Attorney's Office trying to smear the guy in charge of the Innocence Project. It certainly doesn't seem like an operation seeking truth.

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]]>chicago-politics?https://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100107/0422577653Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:40:00 PSTProsecutors Claim 'Innocence Project' Journalism Students Paid WitnessesMike Masnickhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091111/0731546897.shtml
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091111/0731546897.shtmlall sorts of information on the students who were involved in the Medill Innocence Project -- a journalism school investigative reporting effort that has helped free wrongly convicted individuals. The prosecutors were asking for information on the students' grades and private notes, which seemed to go beyond what seemed reasonable. However, now the prosecutors are claiming that the students may have paid witnesses for their interviews, which could raise questions about their authenticity (found via Romenesko). Of course, reading the details, it's not so clear cut. The students admit that they paid for the guy's cab fare, but it sounds like there was money left over from the cash they gave the cabbie, and he gave it to the interview subject (who then used it to buy drugs). That certainly makes it a little more clear as to why prosecutors were looking for more info, but it still seems like the overall request went beyond what was reasonable. It certainly looks more like an intimidation tactic than any attempt to get to the bottom of the case.